Johnstown 2024
haiku from the rain poetry project
Putting the humanities into action
Dear Reader,
In your hands is the poetic brilliance of Johnstown’s youth, created during our 2024 Rain Poetry project. Each haiku tells its own story, providing us little windows into the unique experiences of Johnstown’s children. Their words are a joy to read and give me hope for the next generation.
Rain Poetry is the embodiment of PA Humanities’ tagline: “We put the humanities into action.” This project, from the hands-on workshops to the neighborhood installations and celebrations, is at the confluence of all the streams of our peoplecentered work: youth development, culture, creativity, and community building. It shows the power of the humanities to bring everyday people together and do something that’s meaningful, fosters belonging, and strengthens connection to place.
As you flip through these pages, it is my hope you’ll be inspired to bring similarly creative and engaging intergenerational projects to your own community.
A heartfelt thank you to the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance for an 1889 Foundation Creative Health Impact Grant, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 ARPA PA Arts and Culture Recovery Program for their support making this project possible and providing an opportunity for young poets to turn their daily lives into living works of public art.
Dawn Frisby Byers Senior Director of Content and Engagement PA Humanities
What do we mean by the humanities?
With the power of the humanities, we come to understand and connect through the sharing of human experiences.
Storytelling, historical perspectives, personal interpretation, creativity, and deliberative conversations are the tools that the humanities provide everyday people. Equipped with these resources, communities can document their own culture and move forward in shaping their homes. The results are transformative insights into ourselves and our world, inspiring us to work together for a stronger society. Dialogue leads to community building, which drives us to collective action.
About PA Humanities
Our mission is to put the humanities in action across the state. By putting people first and through special projects, programs and grantmaking, our work champions the humanities and centers growth, partnership and community as a pathway to positive, lasting change. During 2023-24 we celebrated 50 years of bringing Pennsylvanians together to make meaningful change through the humanities.
Project overview
Rain Poetry launched in 2023 in Philadelphia as part of PA Humanities’ 50th anniversary celebrations. In the spring of 2024 we brought the project to Pittsburgh and to Johnstown. We engaged local teaching artists Aspen Mock, Eric Schwerer, and Denise Urban to lead haiku workshops in Johnstown during the spring and summer, including one during The Learning Lamp’s Children’s Book Festival at Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center, two at the Cambria County Library, and one during “cryptid camp” at the Bottle Works.
The children and teens at the first three workshops wrote poems centered around the theme of growth. The young people at the cryptid camp wrote haiku based on the creatures they created earlier in the week.
The creative team at Bottle Works, headed by executive director Matt Lamb, and MADE Johnstown installed the poems at the Bottle Works, the library, and the library’s StoryWalk along the Johnstown Greenways Trail using a combination of signs, storyboards, and stencils on the sidewalk. The stencils were sprayed with a special “invisible” solution that only shows when wet, making it Rain Poetry. All it takes is some water to make the poems appear underfoot like magic!
Once the installations were complete, we held a special reveal celebration and invited community members to come together and share in the creativity and wisdom of Johnstown youth. While the
installations are not permanent, the impact on the young poets, lessons learned, conversations around poetry and community and the words contained in this book will last long after the poems vanish for good.
Partner organizations and workshop host sites
Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center
411 & 413 3rd Avenue
Johnstown, PA 15906
Children’s Book Festival
An event of The Learning Lamp at Bottle Works
Cambria County Library 248 Main Street
Johnstown, PA 15901
Installation sites
S FNB Pop Plaza at the Bottle Works
411 & 413 3rd Avenue
Johnstown, PA 15906
S Cambria County Library
StoryWalk
On the ground at either end of the StoryWalk and in the posts along the StoryWalk itself along the Johnstown Greenways Trail (also known as the Iron Works Trail) that runs from Johns Street near Peoples Natural Gas Park to the footbridge leading to Cambria City.
S Cambria County Library
248 Main Street
Johnstown, PA 15901
Program partners
Matt Lamb
Executive Director Bottle Works
“The Bottle Works is dedicated to community engagement through the arts and collaborative efforts that benefit our community. Rain Poetry was the perfect project for us. Working with PA Humanities, the Cambria County Library, Learning Lamp, MADE Johnstown, and other community collaborators, along with the kids in our community was an absolute pleasure. It is an absolute delight to see our young poets bringing family and friends to our facility to reveal their poems and witness the absolute joy in their reactions.”
Leah Johncola
Children’s Coordinator Cambria County Library
“The Rain Poetry project provided a chance for us to connect youth in our community to local poets, who taught them valuable language and communication skills and how to utilize those skills to express themselves by writing poetry.
PA Humanities allowed us this unique opportunity to not only help our kids and teens improve their literacy skills, but to do so through a unique art form that encourages personal growth and empowerment. The poems that were created will be shared with our community in a fun and engaging way that
“It was a thrill to lead haiku writing workshops at Bottle Works and the Cambria County Library. Both Bottle Works and the library have enthusiastic staff with great energy. Johnstown kids know those are two great places to go to express themselves artistically. I’m excited to see the teenagers’ and children’s writing come to life as public art for all of Johnstown to enjoy.”
Denise Urban Teaching Artist
“My mission was to inspire the group to write their own haikus. I left feeling more inspired by them and was blown away by their creativity and the smiles on their faces.”
Aspen Mock Teaching Artist
“The Rain Poetry Project is so multifaceted and FUN: it connects communities with the natural world, celebrates haiku poetry, and empowers youth voices to become published poets through a public installation of their work! It was amazing to have students walk into a workshop, and walk out as poets with a polished, publishable poem.”
Rain Poetry program curriculum development consultants and project advisors
Trapeta B. Mayson
Yolanda Wisher
Dr. Cathleen Cohen
Design and installation consultants
Anshika Lal and Alex Gilliam, Tiny WPA
Poems
The birds sing their song
Acorns clink, plink on the ground
These sounds make me glad
Tatum N, 10
Big sandstone boulders
Looking for hand and foot holds
My body can climb
Luke T, 7
At Linn Run flat rocks
I saw a mountain laurel
It was beautiful
Lydia T, 8
The bird was eating
And he had a friend with him
They became a couple
Brooklyn M, 10
Collecting flowers
Makes me happy
They are pretty and colorful
Tatiana M, 9
The rain drops
Sweetens the day and It makes rainbows
Priya W, 7
I love to go out
When I go outside it’s fun
I love it so much
LeVona C, 9
I love to take naps
I love to go to dance practice
I love to make food
Ayla A, 8
Look at the birdies!
The birds are singing sweetly. Croak! A frog joins in.
Scarlett V, 6
Rain pours down on me Trying to get free from clouds. Pit Pat it does too
Kinsie F, 10
Lots of snow I am happy sledding In the snow
Zach A, Grade 2
I was small
Then I grew like a Lilac in summer
Miller L, Grade 5
Colder, colder and still
Colder, but still my leaves haven’t Fallen. What am I
James, Grade 3
Dangerous lions and tigers
Are predators to other animals They better watch out or else they will be eaten
Arya, Grade 3
I like milk
It is like a breeze
It’s like dandelions
It is like soft snow
Eliza W, 1st grade
I hear them peep
A peaceful sound for baby
Chicks I have found
Harmony, Grade 4
Our goals keep growing
They grow because we are strong
Continue fighting
Molli L, 16
The water weathers me
The bright sun shines on my skin I’m just a mere pebble
Molli L, 16
Happiness flows from me
You give off love when you speak
Thank you for being you
Molli L, 16
Look at all we’ve done But the journey is never done We have grown so far
Molli L, 16
I know I’m mighty
You can not take that from me
I’m proud to be me
Molli L, 16
I grow, and I know That even as I’m taller Youth will never leave
Aria P, 13
Raindrops are falling
Giving up the sky, just so Buds can see the sun
Aria P, 13
“No, don’t jump, don’t jump Your hope is just deception.”
I jump, and I fly
Aria P, 13
Growing, as a tree, Stretching out my limbs and mind, My heart to the world
Aria P, 13
The damp smell of rain Falling, falling to the earth Sinking to the soil
Aria P, 13
Some new things scare me Growth can be terrifying I’m glad that I’m brave
Aria P, 13
The bees are buzzing Winds are blowing in the tree Flowers are blooming
Isabella L, 14
Small kids, younger minds
Bigger school, learning more
New things, on my own
Isabella L, 14
Magic in the air
The witches are casting spells
Pointy hats, black cats
Isabella L, 14
Scary stories, jump scares
Sitting at the fire, smiling
Rotting, yummy smores
Isabella L, 14
Stars are shining bright
Wolf is howling at the moon
Sun is peeking up
Isabella L, 14
The journey could be long But you need to fulfill The destiny of the goldfish
Robert S, 12
A doll’s stuffed animal eyes It sees with its soul. A myth not to be told.
Bronson R, 9
Sometimes we need help But we don’t ask out of fear So don’t be afraid
Jaelyn P, Age 14
Hope is a great gift
Given to us by the gods
Drifting away, gone
Jaelyn P, Age 14
Don’t feel the sorrow
Look for the joy in the dark
Failing helps us grow
Jaelyn P, Age 14
You don’t need to hide
The dark is a scary place
So turn on the lights
Jaelyn P, Age 14
The shade overtakes
Nothing can grow in the dark
But the sun shines through
Jaelyn P, Age 14
Rain poetry
Independent evaluation
Independent evaluator Beth Uzwiak, PhD, gathered data to consider the impact of Rain Poetry within equity-centered humanities values and practices, and to inform, guide and fine-tune the project in other towns and cities in Pennsylvania. Included among the many outcomes, she found:
S Literacy and socio-emotional skills: Rain Poetry was successful in teaching youth to write haikus and learn about its form and history. They practiced skills such as creative self-expression, sharing with peers and storytelling.
S Community building: Students participated in the wider goal of the project, which was to activate the humanities in public spaces by inviting project partners, families, students and community members to celebrate youth poetry. Students were celebrated as they saw their poems move from their imagination into public space.
In addition to gathering feedback from teaching artists and program partners in Pittsburgh, PA Humanities asked students at the conclusion of each workshop how they felt writing poetry. Here is some of what they said:
• Uplifted and powerful
• Creative, self-aware, curious
• Good, great and wonderful
• I felt creative. I felt free to share. I felt happy.
• More lively and peaceful
• Writing poetry made me feel good. Very good. Super good. And super duper good.
• It was fun. I learned a lot but still hungry for more.
• It made me feel good.
• Happy a little.
WordCloud created from student reflections
Thank you
The Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance for an 1889 Foundation Creative Health Impact Grant, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 ARPA PA Arts and Culture Recovery Program for their generous support of the Rain Poetry project; Leah Spangler, Yamila Audisio and Emily Yuhas from The Learning Lamp; Matt Lamb and the creative team from The Bottle Works; MADE Johnstown; Joyce Homan, Leah Johncola and Aria Nola from Cambria County Library; and teaching artists Aspen Mock, Eric Schwerer and Denise Urban. Design by Johnstown-based artist Joanne Mekis.
Thank you for all your support bringing this incredible creative vision to life!
Up next
We are excited to expand this project to more regions of Pennsylvania and are happy to share lessons learned and be a resource to others who want to create this magical and educational experience in their own community. A toolkit is in the works; contact us at hello@pahumanities.org, visit our website at pahumanities.org, subscribe to our e-newsletter and follow us on social media @pahumanities for all the latest!
